Re: New CiC Techniques Page: Rule of Thirds

Since your talking about the rule of thirds, you may as well throw in 'golden sections'. Sometimes the rule of thirds doesn't make the best composition.................you should check both and see which looks best.

Re: New CiC Techniques Page: Rule of Thirds

Re: New CiC Techniques Page: Rule of Thirds

Originally Posted by KentDub

Never heard of it... maybe enlighten us?

It is similar to the rule of thirds, but the lines cross at a different point.

The rule of thirds, the lines are at exactly 1/3 the width and height of the image. With golden sections the lines are at 3/8 and 5/8(golden sections.) instead of 1/3 and 2/3(rule of thirds). I hope that makes sense.

Re: New CiC Techniques Page: Rule of Thirds

The Golden Ratio, Golden Section, Golden Number, or Golden Mean is represented by the number 1.618033988749895... and is supposed to be prevalent in nature and man made designs. Some attribute a spiritual significance to the value because of it's universality.

Here is a site dedicated to the subject and it explains the mathematical basis:

Re: New CiC Techniques Page: Rule of Thirds

I agree with comments re Golden Section, I'm sure Leonardo Da Vinci would concur on its importance were he around today. However, "Thirds" is easy to understand and apply. I've noticed when I've tried the two methods that the Golden Section seems to my eye to give "better" results when there are pronounced straight edges. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, these are rules of thumb.

Re: New CiC Techniques Page: Rule of Thirds

I've noticed that in all the "Golden" reference material, even the links that I provided, no one actually defines where to place the Golden grid. So, I did some math and calculated the exact positions:

Since Photoshop has a Grid Shape which can be applied to an image to easily apply the Rule of Thirds, I'll be looking into creating a Golden Grid shape to eliminate the need to find a calculator.

Re: New CiC Techniques Page: Rule of Thirds

If everything works as I intend, and hope, just open this in Photoshop, make sure the Golden Ratio Grid is selected in the Paths Palette and from the Edit menu, click on "Define Custom Shape" and enter a name for the new custom shape in the Shape Name dialog box. I used Golden Ratio Grid.

The new Golden Ratio Grid shape appears in the Shape pop-up palette when adding a Custom shape to a shape layer of an image. Being a vector, it can be scaled and used as a guide to determine the best position to crop an image.

Just don't confuse the new Golden Ratio Grid from the Grid shape that comes by default in Photoshop, which is perfect for the Rule of Thirds when used as I describe above.

Since I'm unfamiliar with other Adobe image editors, I do not know how this would be applied.

is defined as an isosceles triangle in which the two longer sides have equal lengths and in which the ratio of this length to that of the third, smaller side is the golden ratio, which does not match with the photo examples shown on the other sites.

Re: New CiC Techniques Page: Rule of Thirds

These *.PSD files are not here to be viewed through a browser. They are here so anyone could download either the Bordered or Border-less version, open the file in Photoshop, Elements, or Lightroom, and load the vector path into the program as a Custom Shape to be used as a guide later on.

Just as the Javascript web page which applies the Golden Ratio to an image, this Golden Ratio Grid can do the same thing all within Photoshop, Elements, or Lightroom.